The gift of God's love

Here is the text of the homily I shared with the families of our newest married couple: a reflection on God's gift of love and our call to live in love with each other.

Wedding homily for Kyle Mitchell and Stacey Dorval

Dear friends: today, Kyle and Stacey have invited you to be present in this church because today they will speak their wedding vows to each other.  Today, the Mitchell and Dorval families will be united through the utterance of these few words.  It’s amazing to think that spoken words can have such power, but for as long as human beings have existed, people have professed their love for one another.  For as long as the Church has existed, we have witnessed these exchanges and prayed for God’s blessings on newly-married couples.

Saint Matthew reminds us today that the one who made them in the beginning made them male and female.  For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife.  Kyle and Stacey have already moved out of the houses in which they grew up.  They have already moved into the house that they now call their own, but from this day forward, there is an added layer of cement, spiritual cement to hold them together. With little Charlie and other children that God may grant them, they will continue to establish their little family as a living sign of God’s love in our midst.

Kyle and Stacey, in case you haven’t noticed, there are a number of customs and traditions that have become associated with a wedding day, including the fact that people will give you gifts.  Most of these will be tangible, but not all of them.  God too gives you gifts today.  Among them are the promise of his love and the gift of faith: that is, our response to God’s gift of love.  God also promises to always be by your side as you live out the days ahead, and God is always faithful to his promises.  He will always be in your midst, so accept this gift, for it is given in love. Set it like a seal on your heart.  The love that God shares with you, and which you have witnessed in the person sitting next to you is as strong as death.  It is characterised by a passion that is as fierce as the grave: it is relentless; it is constantly present to us, sometimes like a gently flickering flame, and at other times like the flashes of a raging fire.  Love, the gift of God, is so strong that nothing we can do will stop it, and that’s a very good thing.

Today is a day of celebration for you, and for your families.  It is also a day of celebration for our parish, because you are both part of the family of God which gathers to pray and to support one another in this place.  Today, the entire parish prays with you; in fact, all of God’s people, in this place and around the world pray with you, celebrate with you, give thanks to God with you.

Thank you for the witness of love that you share with us today. We need to see your love in this place.  We need you to be witnesses of God’s love and compassion.  We need you to be living signs of God’s generosity by the many ways that you share generously with your friends and family and by the quiet ways that you make a point of visiting the sick and others who are shut in.  They are no longer able to join family gatherings as easily as they once might have, so it’s wonderful that you make a point of going out to them.  Thank you for this commitment, for doing these things, as Saint Paul tells us, not from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humble regard for others – always considering them as being better than yourselves … looking not to your own interests but to the interests of others.

The love that is spoken of by Saint Paul and that the disciples witnessed in the life of Jesus while he walked on this earth is the same love that you profess today to one another.  Jesus shows us that love is not as something to be coveted or exploited; it is a constant call to empty ourselves for the sake of another and to always be concerned with bringing joy to others.  If you strive every day to live your lives in love for one another and for others who are privileged enough to know you, then you will be highly thought of by mortals and deeply loved by God.  May this love hold you together for the rest of your lives.  May it be made evident to you in the faces of your children and in the faces of others who accompany you on life’s journey.  May it be strong enough to sustain you in times of celebration and to strengthen you in times of trial. May it always fill you with the deep knowledge of God’s closeness and of his peace.